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Quick guide to Library Approval Plans

In addition to the many books that are selected individually by subject librarians, the University Libraries maintains a set of approval plans with Yankee Book Peddler (YPB) and select other vendors. These agreements provide for the automatic receipt of new materials in print and electronic form matching the Libraries' predetermined specifications, which consist of publisher lists, subject profiles, and other parameters governing academic level, edition, language and price. The YBP plans also serve to identify new ebook titles which are made accessible as part of library initiatives in the area of demand driven acquisitions. Our publisher lists include US and British university presses, along with numerous trade publishers, and scholarly and scientific societies.

Books received on approval generally arrive faster, with a larger discount, and with a lower expenditure of staff resources than books that are ordered individually. Patrons desiring a newly-released book likely to come on approval should not hesitate to request the title, because it is only by this means that we can make sure that they will be notified of its arrival.

We maintain the following approval plans with YBP:

A faculty authors plan for monographs authored or edited by members of the Virginia Tech faculty

A plan governing new monographs in the humanities and social sciences

A plan governing award-winning books

We also maintain a more specialized plan for books in art from Worldwide Books.

We will be glad to share further details of these plans or to entertain suggestions for their modification. Those in Collection Management can access the details of the YBP plans through their password-protected accounts on GOBI, Yankee's online system. Patrons interested in knowing more about our current plans should contact Edward Lener, Associate Director of Collection Management, 540-231-9249.

Collection Management mission

The mission of the Collection Management Department is to build and manage a collection offering the breadth and depth of subjects, formats, and languages necessary to support diverse fields of scholarly endeavor and to advance Virginia Tech's efforts to achieve excellence as a comprehensive land-grant university.